Business Letters: Essential Documents for Your Employees

Part of being organized includes having documents and processes on hand for (almost) every situation that could potentially arise. An organization with specific processes and pre-written documents on hand will rarely find themselves blindsided without recourse.

Specifically, the hiring process and subsequent tenure of an employee requires many documents for personal, professional and legal reasons.

In this piece, we will lay out the essential letter templates for a smooth transition when searching for, hiring and onboarding your next great employee. In addition, we have included some government documents you may want to have on hand.

DISCLAIMER: Of course, when it comes to government documents, you will want to do further research and/or consult a lawyer.

If your next employee *isn’t* that great, we also have included a termination letter template as well.

The Employer Letters

Everything from the offer to letting an employee go, we have you covered.

The offer letter is an exciting letter to write! At this point you have found your dream candidate and you want to wow her with your offer. An offer letter will include an opening statement, a summary of the offered position, relevant start date (and end date if contract work), compensation, benefits and further instructions.

The Rejection Letter is sometimes a necessary bummer letter to write. However, it is (arguably) equally as important as an offer letter.

Letting a candidate know any news, even if it is bad news, allows them to continue their job search process. In addition, penning a thoughtful rejection letter to a great “second place” applicant might encourage another application in the future.

The welcome letter is arguably the most happy letter you will write and an employee will receive. The welcome letter is penned at a time of heightened excitement. An employer and employee, in ideal circumstances, are both very excited to commence a working relationship. Use your welcome letter to express that excitement!

In our welcome letter template, we lay out the essential information that may need to be communicated to a new employee. This includes the relaying of passwords, the assignment of a mentor, the goals over the next weeks or months and some company policies.

It is worth noting that, along with a welcome letter, employees usually enjoy a little swag, too 🙂

While the welcome letter is the most fun to write, the termination letter is quite the opposite.

The termination, contrary to popular belief, is not a letter in which to list all of your grievances against your employee. Most of the time, a termination letter is an addendum to a meeting an employer will hold with the terminated employee.

Our termination letter template lays out the black-and-white details of a termination. This includes a statement of termination, the date effective, details of a severance package (if any) and instructions for an exit interview.

The Employee Letters

Why did we include The Resignation Letter? We included it for two reasons. Firstly, even as a boss or hiring manager, there is always a chance (and, let’s face it, a good possibility) that you will pen a resignation letter at one point. Here is a resignation letter template just in case you find yourself needing it.

More importantly, we wanted to include the resignation letter template in order to pinpoint what a great employee will write in one, even if they are leaving your company. As we have said, the whole employment process is important. This includes every exchange from the initial application to the possible resignation letter.

In short, an employee leaving your company does not make them inherently bad. Use this resignation letter template to weigh out how considerate and communicative your employee was from end to end.